Black Friday Speakers Deals Buying Guide

BLACK FRIDAY SPEAKERS DEALS BUYING GUIDE

The desire for thinner and thinner panels on LCD TVs or even monitors, has resulted in manufacturers shrinking down as much of the bezel and thickness as possible. This means that large speaker diaphragms are one of the first things to go. Whilst a larger Black Friday speaker doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it is going to be better quality, it does mean that it can displace more air and at least be louder, without working that hard. It at least has a chance of sounding better, whereas a tiny little speaker is not going to sound good no matter what you do. If you’re looking for more of a couch distance experience from your TV, you should think of replacing the speakers that come inside your TV.

SOUND BARS

The smallest and least obtrusive solution is a sound bar. Like the name implies, it is a bar which usually goes underneath your TV and therefore doesn’t alter the overall aesthetic of your slim television. Instead of using a lot of physical speakers like you would in a traditional surround sound system, sound bars use lots of smaller drivers all in one place. These are aimed in different directions designed to bounce sound around in order to create a virtual surround experience. You will want one with a subwoofer, since those tiny little speakers don’t produce much bass. A wireless separate subwoofer is another solution, it makes cable management easier as you can hide the subwoofer anywhere in the room that has power. The sound bar can even mount on the back of the TV for the cleanest look possible. Sound bars are great for small apartments and relatively square rooms because they need to be able to bounce the sound around to get the surround sound effect. Otherwise it will sound flat and boring although potentially still better than the onboard speakers.

BOOKSHELF OR TOWER STYLE SPEAKERS

If you have a larger or oddly shaped room, or you just have a lot of objects in the way like chairs and plants, then you should maybe look at bookshelf or tower style speakers. You can find bookshelf speakers with drivers as large as 8 inches. Bookshelf speakers with 6 inch or larger woofers, will usually have enough base for music, but you will still want a subwoofer, if you want to feel the explosions. It is slightly more annoying to wire up, since you need both speakers connected to each other, or you may need them all wired into your receiver. This gives lots of flexibility for setting up the perfect placement around your listening position. Some speakers have onboard power. They are active speakers and have a built-in amplifier which drives both speakers.

5.1 SURROUND SET UP

Finally, there is true 5.1 surround setup and there are two variations to choose from. A home theatre in a box or build your own audio system up DIY style from scratch. This is done by pairing a centre channel with some front speakers and then adding in a couple of surround speakers and then finally topping it all off with a subwoofer. This is where the term 5.1 comes from, five satellites and one sub-woofer. You will also require a receiver, which in most cases acts as an amplifier for everything. This option takes up the most space but can deliver the best experience. A good thing about this option is that if you have a dedicated receiver, there are a lot of different ways you can listen, depending on what kind of content you want. If just listening to music, you can switch it to just stereo, since that is how most music is recorded. If you are watching movies, you can switch to you know whatever type of encoding of surround is in that particular movie. The major downside is the higher cost and amount of room needed.

There is a lot more to learn about speakers, but hopefully this quick overview to sound bars, stereo bookshelves and then surround sound systems is enough to steer you at least in the somewhat right direction. Once you’ve narrowed it down to the category of speaker you want, you can start looking into which brands and specific models are a perfect fit for you.